What is a religionist?

So I was reading an article on National Catholic Reporter calling on black clergy to avoid opposing gay marriage.  Not surprising.  Remember, most of the Catholic Church in America is liberal.  So the article takes the usual liberal spin on the gay issue as presented by modern liberalism that, hopefully, the Church will finally come around and accept.  

But as I read it, I kept seeing that word "religionist."  Religionist. Religionist. Religionist.  What does that even mean?  It seems I hear it more and more. I know what it is supposed to mean.  I'm not stupid.  Part of the triumph of the left is its ability to label people, stereotype people, and then call on the masses to hate and seek the elimination of those people and institutions based upon these carefully crafted terms.

Which isn't anything new by the way.  After all, it's why we don't use terms like nigger and faggot.  We understand that they were terms adopted and used to justify bad things that hurt innocent people.  But in that wonderful pattern of modern liberalism, we study history to learn from it.  That is, learn how we can use the very things we once condemned because, well, we're awesome!

It reminds me of the changes in the term fundamentalist that I thought about the other day.  Even Pope Francis has jumped on the bandwagon, and most Catholics, Orthodox and secularists alike now act as if they have difficulty distinguishing between a person who shoves a stick of dynamite up a baby's bum to kill innocent people and a little old lady in a fundamentalist Baptist church who thinks the first Chapter of Genesis should be read literally.

I wonder how long it will take before the somewhat vaguely defined, but clearly understood, word 'religionist' joins the ever growing pool of terms used to designate those whose guilt resides in their refusal to accept the new gospel of the modern way.